Monday, 6 September 2010

Boris's trumped up attacks on the Coalition

"a trumped-up and politically motivated attempt to have a pop at the Coalition government."

Now what kind of left-wing antagonist would do such a thing?

Oh yes here's Red Boris just a few paragraphs before:

"Transport Secretary Philip Hammond has been asked by the Treasury to accept astonishing cuts — of between 25 and 40 per cent. As I have repeatedly made clear to the Coalition government, I believe cuts of that order would be disastrous for London transport network.

I cannot and will not accept them, and am therefore fighting to preserve and improve our transport infrastructure."

"Of course it is a good thing to bear down on wasteful public spending, and the deficit must certainly be reduced. The question is how far and how fast this can be done without provoking a double dip recession – and the risk is that if there is a serious downturn at the end of the year, it is the Coalition that will cop the blame."

After a series of stories about the Mayor being “ready to explode”, the Financial Times approached the Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles to see what was actually happening.

The paper was told that there had been “no conversation about funding between Pickles and Johnson” and that there was “no meeting in the diary” either. Pickles’ team claimed that “the whole exercise seems to have been artificially created to bolster Boris’s credentials.”

Times are hard in government right now. But for a Mayor struggling to be both in government and in opposition, the times must be even harder still.